We need to be honest - that the 'debate' around Global Warming is rooted in issues far, far separate from anything remotely scientific. It's really an economic discussion. Yes, there is a conversation on-going in science about climate science and quantum physics and the big bang and consciousness and robotics. Yes. But what we see playing out on a chat site about paranormal activity, flying saucers and aliens (what delicious fun!) that dips into climate science and the warming of the planet is very far removed from anything remotely geeky. This a power struggle as old as the hills, with a profoundly philosophical base.
Fact is, it's not about jobs. Our future - at least in the US - is going to be an automated future. What we need are consumers - and lots and lots of them to make the wheels go round.
@mike I might even say it's not about population growth.
I am a keen proponent of the Basic Income Grant. It is so do-able it is scary that we have not done it yet in the US. Rather we are pouring our treasure into armaments - and exhausting ourselves into poverty as a nation as a result. (England did it during WWII). Far-flung empires never work - history is littered with over-extention and rapid decline. Who are we kidding?
Listen to Robert Reich: "Several of you have asked me why I post quotes from the 1830s, 1910s, 1930s, and 1960s and early 1970s. It’s because in those four periods Americans reasserted power over financial elites that threatened to usurp our economy and democracy.
"Unlike societies that have succumbed to fascism, communism, totalitarianism, and violent revolution when their people become frustrated and fearful, America reforms itself. That’s what we did in the 1830s when elites accrued unwarranted privileges, and we abolished property rights for voting, enabled small businesses to incorporate without legislation, and fought off a national bank; between 1901 and 1916 during the Progressive Era, when we established a progressive income tax, enacted pure food and drug laws, and split up the giant trusts; during the New Deal of the 1930s, when we created Social Security, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, a 40-hour workweek, and required employers to negotiate with labor unions; and in the 1960s and early 1970s when we enacted Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Medicare and Medicaid, the Environmental Protection Act, and the Federal Election Campaign Act.
"Another wave of fundamental reform is on its way."
That is what I am choosing to believe we will succeed in doing here in the US - and I am working politically to have that happen - against a powerful head-wind. Climate Change is but one aspect - though a mightily important one defining our futures, as regions, nations and a world.
Robert Reich suggests the following book. I do, too.
Progress and Poverty by Henry George: "This classic work is an enquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and the persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth. Published in 1879, it was admired and advocated by great minds such as Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Leo Tolstoy and Sun Yat-sen in China. Henry George lived through a period of American history which witnessed the closing of the frontier, and he noticed the dramatic deterioration in the condition of labour once that happened. While land was freely available wages were high, once it was enclosed wages fell. Adam Smith appears not to have appreciated the full consequences of this, but he was writing before their full horror became evident in the form of landless peasants crowding into city slums, seeking work in "satanic mills" at minimum wages. Henry George, observing similar events in America (he was a journalist), saw the connection between land enclosure and poverty and unemployment. He also realized that the harmful effects could be rectified, without confiscating the land, through a change in the tax system and allowing market forces to work. This classic offers an alternative ethical and practical guide at a time when the collapse of the Marxist/Socialist experiment and the deep recession in the West leave many seeking fresh inspiration."
In the US we have a push-pull of fuzzy thinking, if not downright fantasy, around the idea of Big Government. Many currently ascribe it to Ronald Reagan's impact but it goes back much, much further.
From a review: "Progress and Poverty is actually a tour-de-force assertion of the classical liberal position that the earth and its rent are common property. It thoroughly demonstrates, with clear and rigorous logic, what Marx realized far too late in his life -- that the monopoly of capital was not a natural phenoenon, but the result of the state-created monopoly of land, through titles that allow landlords to usurp community-created rents." [Replace current modes with 'land' and 'rents', etc.]
From a review: "George debunked several myths that are still propagated today, such as that population growth causes of poverty, that it is natural for capital to employ labor, that government control can effectively remedy poverty, and, most of all, that the economic dynamics governing capital can be blindly applied to land and natural resources."
This is the Fossil Fuel Lobby and the Internet in another guise. Always remember: Capital has no value without the power of labor. Denmark is getting it right. What is being 'fought' in the Climate Change issue (in the US) is multi-layered.
Again from Robert Reich: "One of the most insidious myths in modern America is that people are paid what they're 'worth' - so someone earning no more than today's minimum wage is worth no more than that, while a Wall Street mogul raking in billions must be worth it because that's what he's raking in. It's a meaningless tautology that prevents us from examining whether the market is organized correctly to pay people according to their real worth in society."
In fact, it is the multitudes of consumers - especially, in an automated society (which we are heading towards in the US) - that create wealth. It is the consumer who needs to be 'paid what they're worth'.
The Basic Income Grant - and fasten your seat belts for the explosion of creativity that will ensue. (This is another fallacy - that those on the dole are indolent. In fact, the wealthy receive a 'Basic Income Grant' and then some in the form of their inheritance - and massive tax breaks here in the US.
It is those who have their needs met who are the risk-takers. We now have studies confirming this. While the poor scrabble (and die early) - the wealthy take risks (and live long).
I recommend reading the Amazon reviews of Henry George's book. This one is a stand-out in that it 'explains' how to read the book.
"If ever there was a time when the world needed the wisdom of Henry George, it is now. His classic work, Progress and Poverty, should be required reading for anyone concerned with establishing social and economic justice in a world that seems increasingly characterized by greed.
"The Drake modernized edition makes George's unique insights accessible to those of us who struggle with the pull of conflicting demands on our time. Even so, I recommend an unorthodox approach to this book. The early chapters demand a level of concentration that might be unusual except in someone deeply committed to understanding the root cause of the growing gap between rich and poor. Therefore, start by getting your passions flowing. Read the "Publisher's Forward." Then flip to the afterword and be stirred by Agnes de Mille's answer to the question: "Who was Henry George?" Her writing is as beautiful as her dance. You may now be moved to tackle the economic theories of wages and distribution, but I suggest deferring for just a bit longer. Read the last half of the book first. Begin with Chapter 25, "The True Remedy." Once you've read through to the conclusion, the fire in your belly ought to be sufficient to carry you through the fine points of economic argument contained in the first twenty-four chapters. You won't be disappointed. As Bob Drake, Editor, notes in his preface, "Those who pick up this book are likely to share some concern about the problem of poverty; those who finish it may also find some cause for hope....It was, and still is, a plan for peace, prosperity, equality, and justice."
Owning that means the nonsense the Republican deniers are parroting must be exposed. We are going into an election year. The populace must stay blinded. So no coverage.
pretty poor stuff but rampant among those reading certain - denier - information. Your repeating that 'factoid' is a dead-give-away that you haven't really penetrated the science yet).
